In-game VS Satellite

[Tuskin38]

It must use OSM or some similar data, because there are buildings accurately placed in areas where there isn't any satellite coverage, so nothing for the AI to see.

Airports that don't exist in the sim, either because they're censored or just lack any high quality imagery for them to use still have ATC towers, which are marked as such in OSM.

For example look at Thule Air Base in Greenland. It doesn't exist in the Sim because the imagery there is just too low res, but the ATC tower is accurately placed via 'autogen'. If I go into OSM for the Air Base, that building is labelled as a ATC tower. 

  

1 hour ago, Keto Ketchup said:

I'm joining this thread late, having found this specific post in a search. I have heard "rumors" that OSM was used to help pick the autogen buildings used in MSFS 2020. I assumed that the reason FS placed an apartment complex where the local grocery store resides is because OSM hadn't been updated for my little backwater town, but to my surprise, OSM actually is quite nicely updated, including the clear identity of this particular building as a grocery store. This store is but one example of things that FS has messed up. So this begs the question, DOES flight simulator autogen use OSM data or not? Based on what I'm seeing, it seems like it doesn't.

The sim is using (outdated) OSM data, That giant tower in Melbourne is because of a typo in the OSM Data. I'm guessing it isn't used everywhere.

https://www.engadget.com/flight-simulator-open-street-map-building-205545509.html

[Keto Ketchup]

8 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

The sim is using OSM data, That giant tower in Melbourne is because of a typo in the OSM Data.

This is my confusion, because the buildings in my town do not match in FS the OSM data assigned to them, the apartment complex instead of a flat-roof grocery store being the prime example. Funny thing is that both OSM and the simple aerial ground texture clearly show a flat-roof building, not a bunch of peaked-roof apartments side-by-side.

Perhaps the application of OSM data was done selectively instead of being part of the autogen AI?

[Tuskin38]

4 minutes ago, Keto Ketchup said:

This is my confusion, because the buildings in my town do not match in FS the OSM data assigned to them, the apartment complex instead of a flat-roof grocery store being the prime example. Funny thing is that both OSM and the simple aerial ground texture clearly show a flat-roof building, not a bunch of peaked-roof apartments side-by-side.

Perhaps the application of OSM data was done selectively instead of being part of the autogen AI?

Or the sim only has a limited amount of building types.

When was the last time the buildings in your town were edited in OSM?

The Sim has has buildings not in OSM, those ones must have been done via the AI. For example, my house isn't in OSM, but it's in Bing Maps (in street map mode, not satellite), and in the Sim.

[Keto Ketchup]

1 minute ago, Tuskin38 said:

Or the sim only has a limited amount of building types.

When was the last time the buildings in your town were edited in OSM?

FS definitely has a building type for this grocery, as Walmart and another grocery in the town use the proper autogen, and the grocery turned into an apartment complex matches this typical "flat, low, and wide" building style.

As of edit date, I'll have to look that up. I was going to sign up as a contributor to OSM to update the town in hopes it would fix it in FS, but I'm not convinced my efforts would be worthwhile based on my seeing correct assignments in OSM not being applied in FS. I'm going to need more proof than has been presented so far.

[Tuskin38]

1 minute ago, Keto Ketchup said:

FS definitely has a building type for this grocery, as Walmart and another grocery in the town use the proper autogen, and the grocery turned into an apartment complex matches this typical "flat, low, and wide" building style.

As of edit date, I'll have to look that up. I was going to sign up as a contributor to OSM to update the town in hopes it would fix it in FS, but I'm not convinced my efforts would be worthwhile based on my seeing correct assignments in OSM not being applied in FS. I'm going to need more proof than has been presented so far.

Well the OSM data is at least a year old, because the Melbourne tower was fixed in OSM before the sim was released.